


maybe it was the drugs

by hazey_sloths



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 22:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10397988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazey_sloths/pseuds/hazey_sloths
Summary: in which andrew actually hallucinated neil





	

**Author's Note:**

> look, I didn't come up with this by myself. I was asked to write about this. This is the one with the nice ending. basically, imagine andrew is talking to himself.

Andrew signs the papers that let him leave this place. He gathers his few things and starts down the fluorescently lit grey corridors. Doctor Slosky is following him, a pesky presence but Andrew has always been good at ignoring whoever he doesn’t like. Slosky is no different and the only thing about Andrew that has changed is that he is off his medication. He reaches the door to the reception area, pausing only long enough for Slosky to swipe his I.D badge. He takes several steps forward, ready to breathe the fresh air. He stops when he sees who’s come for him. 

Kevin, Nicky, Aaron. All so depressingly predictable. He starts forward before coming to a rough stop. He looks again, blinks hard twice but it is still Kevin, Nicky and Aaron. Still so incredibly predictable. Where is the fourth? He knows that there is supposed to be someone else. Neil Josten. The most interesting thing to have happened to Andrew in a while. But Neil is not there.

Andrew’s brow tightens with vague concern but he swallows his emotions, stamping them back down into the dirt. He can feel Nicky watching him curiously so he starts again without a word. Neil would’ve come for him, unless something pressingly important has held him up. Something important is always happening with Josten. Andrew makes it his priority to find out more. The kid is so elusive. There one minute and gone the next, secrets so layered that Andrew isn’t sure what is fake and what’s real.

Andrew gets to the car, holding his hand out for the keys. Nicky pulls them out, dropping them into his open hand. Again, perplexing. He could’ve sworn that he gave Neil a key. He searches his mind, combing through all the memories that he has (which is every single one) and he tries his best to remember when he gave Neil a key to the car. And he can see it.

Plain brown hair. Those stupid brown eyes, wide with wonder as he stared at the key. Neil thought he was hiding it well but he never was that good at concealing his emotions. Or perhaps Andrew was better at reading them. No one else seemed to really notice the small changes in Neil’s expression, the shark-like smile that crossed his features before he said something that made someone recoil away from him.

Neil was a puzzle. Andrew could never quite put a finger on what was different about him. Perhaps it was the way he spoke, always managing to keep Andrew’s attention seconds longer than anyone else could. He was enticing and frustrating. A walking bank of lies but sometimes, the truth would come through. Truth and lies suited Josten. He was a runaway and that was the life that he led. But truth became Neil more than lies did.

The ride back to Palmetto is blisteringly loud. Kevin reaches for the volume control only once. Annoyed at his blatant disregard for what isn’t his to control, Andrew smacked his hand out of the way. He made a faint noise of disapproval before turning back to focus on the road. 

His mind works as fast as his car, scrolling through memory after memory of Neil’s face. Neil furiously downing his drink that first time in Columbia. Roland watching Andrew, jealously working the muscle above his eyebrow. He was pleasant but he wasn’t happy with how focused Andrew was on Neil then. Neil, paying that bartender to knock him out. Neil’s sloppy grin before he hit the floor. Foolish boy, thinking he’d beaten Andrew at his game. But he hadn’t. No one beat Andrew at this game, no one managed to keep Andrew’s interest for long and Neil, it seemed, was beginning to lose it.

They reach Palmetto and pull into the parking lot. The others head in, Nicky only holding back long enough to tell Andrew about the events that occurred over winter break. There is nothing on Neil. Andrew is even more confused by this but he keeps his mouth shut until Nicky finishes his report.

“And Neil?” Andrew asks. He keeps his voice neutral, face portraying every bit of disinterest that he can manage. His hands itch for a cigarette. He watches his cousin, instead of searching for one.

Nicky’s face floods with confusion. He takes a hesitant step away from Andrew, just barely but it is noticeable. “Neil?”

Andrew waves him off. “Never mind.”

He watches as Nicky struggles with continuing his question or not. Eventually, his cousin decides to leave well enough alone. Finally, Nicky turns and heads into Fox Tower. Andrew scrubs his hands over his face and lights a cigarette. He takes a hard pull, holding the smoke for as long as he possibly can before letting it out in a long stream. One cloud of smoke rises. Andrew frowns. One looks wrong. He spent so much time smoking with Neil that he forgot what it was like to smoke alone.

The roof is the one place that Andrew thinks of. The only place that is truly just his and Neil’s. He takes the stairs two at the time, not bothering to put his cigarette out. It doesn’t matter. It burns to the filter by the time he reaches the top and he grinds it out with the heel of his shoe before opening the door. 

There is no one there. Andrew walks the entire roof, twice. Or maybe three times. He loses track, runs his hands through his hair and pulls. But still, there is no one there. Once, he lets his voice cut through the cool air, asking Neil’s name, and it is shaky. Something isn’t right. Neil would be here. He wouldn’t run, would he? It wouldn’t be right. It would be predictable. And Neil wasn’t predictable.

Eventually, Andrew makes his way down from the roof. There is no Neil in their room. Even Neil’s things are gone. But Andrew bites his tongue so hard it bleeds and he keeps the disappointment an arm’s length away and then some. 

Two weeks later and there is still no trace, no mention of Neil. Everyone seems to have forgotten about him. He shows up in Andrew’s dreams though, blowing smoke in his face. Laughing, smiling that almost mocking smile as he gazes up at Andrew and gives him a two finger salute. Andrew spars to keep his mind off it but Renee can tell there is something. One afternoon, after a particularly rough sparring session, she drops beside him on the floor. She follows his gaze to where he has nearly burnt holes in the wall.

“What is wrong, Andrew?” Renee asks. She doesn’t mean it in any way. Just asking because she is a friend and he knows that she really does care. She isn’t being patronizing. Still his skin crawls.

It takes him several tries but if anyone will tell him without expecting something, it is Renee. She is the only one who would be able to handle him anyway. He keeps watching the wall though, when he says, “What happened to Neil Josten?”

He hears Renee shift. She turns her whole body to face him, tilts her head just into the edges of Andrew’s sight. He can almost hear the pity coming from her as she answers his question. “Andrew, who is Neil Josten?”

He feels something tighten in his chest. It’s some kind of awful dread, the kind that used to seep into his bones when he was in those foster homes. The kind that he got when he walked into counseling at the hospital. He actually feels fear, tastes it in a horrible bitterness on the tip of his tongue. He hates Neil for making him feel. Making him feel this fear like he’s lost something. He and Neil were nothing. They are nothing. But they understood one another in ways that no one else really could. 

“Andrew?” Renee asks again. She doesn’t finish that question but he knows what she means. 

“What do you mean ‘who is Neil Josten?’” He fixes her with a look. He does his best to convey boredom but he thinks she can see the fear that is hidden there. Her eyes soften.

“Andrew,” she starts. The pity is real in her voice. He already knows where this is going but he forces himself to sit there as Renee tells him what he is beginning to feel. He doesn’t actually hear anything until the end. “I’m sorry, Andrew.”

He is on autopilot. The roof. The roof. The roof. He doesn’t hear Renee calling after him, ignores the looks and the shouts from students he slams into. In his urgency, he doesn’t care who he hurts. He has to get to the roof. He throws the door open so hard it makes a sharp bang that echoes across the rooftop. He spins in the circle, searching for that smile, that irritatingly memorable face but there is nothing.

“Neil Josten,” he screams. The emotion floods him before he can stop it and he bends over with the force that his voice projects. “Neil, where are you?!”

“I’m right here. I’m fine.” The voice carries a calm that Andrew grips. He stops short of the edge of the roof, gaze fixed on sharp blue eyes and a shock of red hair. It doesn’t completely look like him but it doesn’t matter if the eyes are hair are different. He’d know that face anywhere. Neil.

“I’ll take an explanation now,” Andrew says.

Neil smiles, not the thin smile that he usually has. Not the smile that guards his lies. It is a gentle smile, a sad one. “I was worried about you.”

Andrew’s hand cuts Neil off, pressing tightly against the other man’s mouth. Andrew feels like he can’t breathe but he forces air into his lungs. “Do not make the mistake of thinking I need your protection.”

Every inch of his body screams at him to stop. Let him go. Let Neil go. He’s a lie. He’s a lie. He’s a lie. But with every beat of his heart, something tells Andrew that he was real. Real. Real. Real.

Neil smirks. “Your crumbling psyche is your problem. Not mine.”

Andrew actually flinches. That is something he would say. Neil would never say this. Neil was always too obsessed with Andrew to say something like that. He was always interested, always asking questions. What Neil just said, that was Andrew. He’s a lie.

“I hate you,” Andrew whispers. The smoke of this pipe dream clogs his lungs, makes his chest ache so much that. He looks over the edge of the roof, lights a cigarette to take one drag and then he flicks it off the room. 

Neil watches it go as well. Andrew looks up at him. He can’t place his feelings. Can’t understand them. He reaches for Neil, stopping short when he realizes he cannot feel any warmth coming from the other boy’s skin. 

“You are a pipe dream,” Andrew says. And the agony of the words cut him deeper than any knife could. He lets his hand fall back to his side, lets himself shut down again. “Go away and leave me alone.”

Just like that, Neil vanishes. Andrew sits on the edge, conjures up images of that stupid boy again and again. He can feel himself receding, disappearing into the furthest parts of his mind, trying to grab those memories to drag them back to the front.

“Thank you,” Andrew whispers and it sounds like Neil. “You were amazing.”


End file.
